The present invention relates to a handling device for a replaceable consumable of a printhead service station of a printing device.
An inkjet printing apparatus comprises one or more printheads, which perform printing by ejecting drops of ink on a printing media through a plurality of nozzles.
In order to avoid build up of dirt, dry ink or other sources of obstruction in the printhead nozzles, and to maintain an optimum printing quality, the apparatus is typically provided with a service station to perform cleaning and maintenance operations on the printheads.
The service station is arranged within the printing apparatus, either stationary or on a movable carriage, and usually includes a capping module for covering the printheads when the printer is not is use, a wiping module comprising elastomeric wipers for wiping the printheads, and a spittoon module.
A spittoon is a reservoir for waste ink, into which the printheads eject or fire a number of drops of ink in a servicing operation known as “spitting”, with the aim of clearing the nozzles of the printhead from clogs and prevent their obstruction.
Typically, the printheads can be moved over the service station for maintenance.
The modules of the service station that have been described may be consumable elements, especially in the case of large format printers, and they need to be replaced by the user with a certain frequency; for this purpose the user has to remove the old consumable from the apparatus and put a new one in its place. When the service station is mounted on a carriage, the carriage is moved towards a maintenance position to allow the user to perform the replacement more easily.
However, when the user replaces a consumable of the service station there is a risk that he gets soiled with ink when gripping and handling the consumable elements that need to be replaced; this is due to the fact that the surfaces of the consumables of the service station usually become dirty with ink during the printhead servicing operations.
Most of the ink on the service station surfaces is caused by the spitting operation: not only because of the ink drops actually fired by the printhead, but especially due to the fact that during spitting a cloud or aerosol of ink arises all around the printhead and thus over the service station, and eventually deposits on the exposed surfaces.
Another source of such dirt is the ink that is projected from the elastomeric wipers during wiping of the printhead nozzles.
Over time, the soiling of the consumables can become quite important, especially if the apparatus and the service station are designed such that replacement of the consumables is not required often.
The aerosol may soil not only the spittoon module, but also other parts of the service station and other consumables that are located nearby.
Some printing apparatus have for each printhead a single cleaning element that includes the capping, wiping and spittoon modules, such that the user replaces the whole cleaning element when needed. Such a structure is described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,290, assigned to the present applicant; in this document, the cleaning elements are provided with a handle at the front portion thereof, away from the spittoon module, that is located in its turn at the back of the cleaning element (as viewed from the front of the printing apparatus).
Thus, the handle can be kept relatively clean and there is a relatively small risk that the user gets ink on his hands when replacing the consumable.
However, in some printers each module of the service station is a separate consumable element and needs to be replaced separately from the others, because each consumable has a different life: caps depend on aerosol dirtiness, wiper on ink accumulation and spittoon on the available capacity. In this case more handles would be needed, at least some of which cannot be protected from the ink aerosol.
Another factor/that increases the possibility that the user gets ink on his hands when replacing the consumables is the desirable tendency of dimensioning and structuring service stations such as to allow consumables to be replaced only rarely, e.g. once a year: in this case, the amount of ink that may build up on the surfaces of the consumables may be quite large.
In the case of the spittoon, apart from the ink that is deposited on the surfaces, there is a further problem in that the module to be replaced may contain liquid ink that can spill if the user tilts the module.
The present invention seeks to improve the operation of replacement of a consumable element of a printhead service station by a user, and reduce the risk of ink stains.